Julia Denos (present)

Julia Denos is a Boston-based illustrator. She graduated from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, where she received her BFA in Illustration. Denos grew up making picture books and is now working full time as an illustrator, creating works of art for clients such as American Girl Magazine, Independent Banker Magazine, and Oxford University Press.

Ran Hwang (present)

Ran Hwang, a Korean-born artist who creates intricate and poetic installations, is most known for her wall sculptures utilizing every day objects, such as buttons and crystals. With these objects, she creates giant wall murals of birds and trees, as well as other scenes. Most of her work is inspired by Buddhist theories and symbolism.

Joshua Allen Harris

Audrey Kawasaki (1982-present)

Audrey Kawasaki, born on March 31, 1982, is a Los Angeles-based painter, most known for her paintings of adolescent women.

Akaine (1994-present)

Akaine, born on July 9, 1994 in Illinois, is a child prodigy. At age four she began to draw, and by age six, she was creating intricate and lifelike paintings. Growing up, she taught herself all the artistic skills that she obtained through keen observation and study. She often works over a hundred to two hundred hours on a painting, producing 8 to 20 paintings a year. Her favorite mediums are acrylics and oil paints.

Matt W. Moore (1980-present)

Matt W. Moore is the founder of MWN Graphics, a design and illustration studio based in Portland, Maine. Moore is most known for his signature "Vectorfunk" style, doing freeform watercolor paintings to huge aerosol murals. In February of 2010, Moore traveled to Paris for his first Paris Solo Exhibition. While he was there, he absorbed the culture and gained inspiration from the environment around him. These paintings (above), which are so clean and precise that they almost give off a digital feel, were created entirely with spray paint, one of his favorite mediums.

Betsy Walton (present)

Betsy Walton, born in Kansas, is a painter and illustrator based in Portland, Oregon. As a painter, Walton works with galleries, collectors, as well as personal projects. Her style is influenced by Byzantine icon paintings, American folk art, geometric abstraction, and the works of many contemporary painters and illustrators. Her artwork explores the "tension and balance between the mysterious nature of our existence and the objects and environments we find in everyday life." I was drawn to Walton's paintings because of her use of pattern, color, and unique subject matters.

David Fokos (1960-present)

David Fokos, born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1960, is a renowned photographer who specializes in long exposure shots. He received his B.S. from Cornell University in 1984, and now lives in San Diego, California. Fokos works with the "camera's unique ability to 'average time' in order to examine and understand the mechanisms of human perception and to reconcile our differing subjective and objective views of the world."

Stella Im Hultberg (present)

Stella Im Hultberg is a painter and sculptor living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She was born in South Korea, but later moved to the United States to California, where she studied Industrial Design and worked as a product designer. In 2005, she began making her own unique paintings and sculptures. Stella's work has been exhibited all over California, Washington, and Oregon.

Amy and Luci (present)

From their blog: "We like words. And we like arranging objects. And we like taking photos too. So we invented up a little project to keep our over-active imaginations occupied. We take it in turns to photograph a word made of things. Each word somehow relates with the word that has gone before. We like this idea."

http://wemakewords.blogspot.com/

Alexandre Farto (present)

Alexandre Farto is a Portuguese-born, London-based graffiti artist. However, his art is very different from typical street art. He utilizes decaying street walls and buildings to create his masterpieces. He does this by scratching off the surface of his "canvases" to make beautiful works of art. His giant wall portraits reflect how "urbanism is swallowing up city streets."

Esao Andrews (1978-present)

Esao Andrews, born in Mesa, Arizona in 1978, is an American painter most known for his oil paintings on wood panels. In 1996, he moved to New York City where he attended The School of Visual Arts in order to pursue a life of art making. He started out making skateboard designs, and has now done illustrations for books as well as album covers for several artists.  His art blends grotesque, erotic, and surreal themes.

Michael Kenna (1953-present)

Michael Kenna, born in Widnes, Lancashire, England in 1953, is a black and white photographer. He has done commercial work for many major companies including Nissan, Adidas, and Sprint and his photographs have also been published in magazines and books. I was drawn to Kenna's work because of his simple yet elegant compositions and the way he so nicely captures the contrast between light and dark.

Heike Weber (1962-present)

Heike Weber, born in Germany in 1962, is an installation artist. She creates extensive installations using permanent marker on acrylic walls and floors. Weber makes extravagant patterns and designs on surfaces that reach up to 600 m2, creating an interesting and exciting experience for the audience as they are engulfed in a mass of lines and patterns. Her work is exhibited all over Germany as well as the United States.

Theo Jansen (1948-present)

Theo Jansen, born in Scheveningen, Netherlands in 1948, is a very creative and unique sculpture artist. He creates gigantic sculptures out of recycled materials, such as bottles and pipes, and constructs them in a way that allows them to move in the wind like living creatures. Here is his website to see a video of one of his "Strandbeests" in action - http://www.strandbeest.com/index.php.

Martin O'Neill (present)

Martin O'Neill is a UK based graphic artist and illustrator, known for his unique and handmade collages. O'Neill creates his work by combining collage, silkscreen, photography, paint, transfers, and photo copies. He has worked with everything from advertising, design, editorial and book publishing, and UK and US press. He is now currently an Associate Lecturer at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.

Peggy Wolf (present)

Peggy Wolf, a German illustrator, is known for her fun and colorful illustrations and collages, mostly of women. She became interested in illustrating when she was studying Fashion Design. In 2006, Wolf moved to London where she has since worked on post card designs for Boss Print and illustrations for Spiderlilly, and the magazine, Ameera.

Miles "Mac" MacGregor (1980-present)

Miles MacGregor (El Mac), born in Los Angeles in 1980, is a world famous graffiti artist. He has been studying art independently since he was a child, and now has work exhibited all over the world including the U.S., Mexico, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Ireland, and France. El Mac draws his inspiration from the surrounding Mexican culture, religious art, pin-up art, graffiti, and a number of classical artists. Today, he is based in Pheonix and Los Angeles.

Bert Simons (present)

While Bert Simons makes furniture, digital art, and designs websites, he is most well known for his incredibly realistic paper portrait sculptures. First, he digitizes his subject, using a 3D program called Bender. He then maps out the face and adds texture to it. Once the whole computer process is done, he prints out a 2D version and glues it together, creating a life-size portrait. His work has been exhibited all over, including Amsterdam, and has been published in 'FHM' and Bright magazine.

Robert J. Lang (present)

Robert J. Lang, a renowned origami artist, is known as one of the world's most leading masters of the art, with more than 500 designs catalogued and diagrammed. Lang's creations are extremely detailed and realistic, including some of the most complex origami designs ever created. In 1992, Lang attended many origami conventions, giving lectures about how the craft of origami connects with mathematics, science, and technology. His work has been exhibited in New York, Paris, San Diego, and Japan.

Mathew Star Thomas (present)

Mathew Thomas, based in Bath, UK, is an illustrator and designer. Thomas creates his beautiful and colorful artwork with several different mediums, including ink, marker, pen, photos, and vectors. Recently, he has been combining his techniques with drawings that his wife, Debra Thomas, has previously drawn. I was drawn to Thomas's work because of the intricate designs and his use of colors and textures.

Jen Wang (1984-present)

Jen Wang, who was born in 1984 and grew up in the San Fransisco Bay area, is a accomplished illustrator. She graduated SFSU with a Sociology degree, and has worked several jobs since then, including a photolab assistant and animation assistant. She has work with comics, and has done illustrations for books. She currently works in Los Angeles, working on graphic novels.

Marguerite Sauvage (present)

Marguerite Sauvage, based in Paris, has worked as an illustrator, art director, and animator. She began her work in 2001, and now has artwork published and exposed in a number of books on various topics relating to art and design. Her work has also been featured in Elle magazine, and she has worked with PlayStation, Apple, and Motorola as well. Sauvage is most well known for her chic modern illustrations that "capture the lifestyle of today's trendsetters."

Somefield (present)

While I couldn't find much information about this artist, I was still incredibly drawn by their work. I love their use of very imaginative subjects and their creative use of color. A lot of their images give off a vintage feel to them, which is very visually pleasing.

Maggie Taylor (1961-present)

Maggie Taylor, born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1961, is an artist who specializes in digital images. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States as well as Europe. She received her BA degree in philosophy from Yale University, then went on to the University of Florida in 1987, where she got her MFA degree in photography. In 1996, after ten years of being a still life photographer, Taylor began working with the computer and Adobe Photoshop to create her images. She produces prints by scanning objects into a computer, then layers and manipulates these images to create a surrealistic montage.

Sandrine Estrade Boulet (present)

Sandrine Estrade Boulet is an artist who is greatly inspired by the urban environment around her. She finds random objects and different things in the streets and creates illustrations based off of what she sees. I love Boulet's work simply because of how creative and imaginative it is. What might look like a piece of trash to one person, may be another work of art for Boulet.

Mark Tucker (present)

Mark Tucker, based in Nashville Tennessee, is a commercial photographer who is most well known for his Lifestyle and Portrait photography. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, Photo Design, Photo Insider, and PhotoMarket magazines. I was interested in Tucker's work, especially his portraits, because of the unique way he captures his subjects' emotions and facial expressions in his photographs. While his portraits are very unique and beautiful, he also photographs landscapes, lifestyle, and animals.

Samm Blake (present)

Samm Blake is an amazing wedding photographer. I was drawn to his work because of the beautiful and ethereal atmosphere he creates through his editing. He has a unique way of capturing his subjects with a lot of emotion, which was another aspect that I really loved about Blake's work.

Dain (present)

Dain is a Brooklyn-based graffiti artist, who mixes street art references with graffiti and drawing. He takes the photos of "classical beauties" and modernizes them by adding an urban twist. Dain starts with a black and white photo, then he makes it into a type of collage. His first solo exhibition, titled "Born Again," was at the Lenenson Gallery in Paris.

Peter Callesen (1967-present)

Peter Callesen, born in 1967 in Denmark, is a renowned paper sculptor. Callesen has the unique ability to create small sculptures using one sheet of paper (as shown above). He also does much larger works, some paper sculptures being of impressive size. Callesen attended Goldsmiths College, Arhus Art School, and Arhus School of Architecture. His work has been exhibited all over Denmark and London.

Raquel Aparicio (present)

Raquel Aparicio, born in Avila, is an illustrator for magazines, books, as well as advertising. Aparicio spent several years in Edinburgh before moving back to Spain to study illustration. She attended the Illustration Academy in Florida for one year. Aparicio's work can be seen in The New York Times, Elle, and Nylon.

Benjamin Tour (present)

Benjamin Tour, a Vancouver-based painter and illustrator, is most well known for translating human behavior into beautifully crafted portraits. In 1999, he received a degree in illustration at Sheridan College. Tour begins his works of art with a ballpoint pen, sketching out each figure. He then goes back over it with paints, inks, and "spray bombs" to finalize his pieces. Tour's work can be seen all over New York, California, and many other places. He has also won the Western Magazine Award's Illustration of the Year award.

Scott Wade (present)

Scott Wade is an artist who uses dirty cars as his canvas. Ironically enough, though, he cleans the car thoroughly before creating his masterpieces. He then covers the entire window in dirt, then uses a paintbrush to create his "paintings."

William Hundley (present)

William Hundley, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a very unique and quirky photographer. He is currently based in Austen, Texas. He has a series titled "Entoptic Phenomena" that is a collection of photographs of different fabrics floating midway in the air. He also has another series of random everyday objects sitting on top of cheeseburgers. I was drawn to Hundley's work because of his quirky yet oddly intriguing photographs.

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in 1775, was an English romantic landscape painter, watercolorist, and printmaker. While he was widely known for his oil paintings, he was also considered to be a master of watercolor landscape paintings. Turner is commonly known as the "painter of light" because of his unique ability to capture darkness and lightness in a realistic way within his paintings. Some of his most famous pieces include "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons" and "The Battle of Trafalgar."